Racism and The Self

Caverly Morgan is a meditation teacher, author, speaker, and nonprofit founder. She is the founder of Peace in Schools, a nonprofit that created the nation’s first for-credit mindfulness class in public high schools. Caverly is also the founder of Presence Collective, a community of cross-cultural contemplatives committed to personal and collective transformation. She is the author of A Kids Book About Mindfulness and The Heart of Who We Are: realizing freedom together.

Caverly blends the original spirit of Zen with a modern nondual approach. Her practice began in 1995 and has included eight years of training in a silent Zen monastery. She has been teaching contemplative practice since 2001 and leads meditation retreats, workshops and online classes internationally.

Caverly speaks publicly on topics including contemplative practice, personal and collective transformation, social entrepreneurship, authentic leadership, and mindfulness education, and has been featured in publications such as Mindful magazine (as a cover subject) and The New York Times. She has been a teacher and presenter at the Science and Nonduality Conference, 1440 Multiversity, Sangha Live, the Mind and Life International Symposium for Contemplative Research, Buddha at the Gas Pump, Open Circle, the New York Zen Center of Contemplative Care, and many more.

Victoria Santos, MA, designs and facilitates group processes in communities, organizations, businesses, universities, and schools. Her work is rooted in her passion for human potential. As a facilitator, Victoria is willing to speak her truth and ask real questions of people who want to step beyond comfort zones to examine ways that today’s perceptions can help or hinder tomorrow’s strategic actions. She brings a strong analysis of race in America, and suggests meaningful steps towards equity goals.

Victoria likes to explore the ways that intersectional and structural oppressions express themselves in systems, cultures and individuals. She helps organizational leaders recognize systemic barriers to racial and social equity, identify and embrace actions that foster personal and professional growth and transform organizational culture.

Victoria brings over thirty years of experience in leadership education and community organizing and development. She has trained in the fields of psychology, conflict resolution, meditation, equity, gender studies, rituals, and embodied practices. Victoria is a Spanish-fluent Afro-Latina immigrant living in the Pacific Northwest.

Dr. Sará King is a mother, a UCLA-trained neuroscientist, education philosopher, political scientist and critical theorist who will begin a neuroscience post-doctoral fellowship in the department of Neurology at OHSU this fall. She is an internationally recognized thought leader in field of mindfulness and social justice in schools, and enjoys public speaking and advocacy work at the intersection of these fields.

Sará is also an author, entrepreneur, and yoga and meditation teacher who founded MindHeart Consulting, a company dedicated to creating cutting edge research projects and community healing experiences through the framework that she personally developed called “The Science of Social Justice” – which involves the use of an intersectional understanding of the biopsychosocial impact of systemic oppression on marginalized populations, combined with the application of the science of well-being to understand how to create research and healing projects that serve the aims of social justice in underrepresented communities.

She has studied and practiced hatha yoga and Buddhist philosophy for the past 14 years, and has completed a 500 hr. Mindful Yoga and Meditation teacher training at Spirit Rock. She is also an artist who uses poetry, contemplative photography, creative writing and painting as her favorite forms of exploring self expression, and blends these into her personal contemplative practice and professional mindfulness consulting work.

Orlando is a cofounder of The Resonance Experience where his focus is on using sound, and the environments it creates, as a tool for aiding people in exploring listening awareness. Due to his deep connection with the Teyuna indigenous tribes of Colombia, he has been inspired in investigating sound and its ability to be a perspective shifter. He has been invited to speak at many events on sound and its relation to self awareness such as NYU’s Love Class and the Interpersonal Neurobiology Conference. Alongside the Teyuna tribes, he has toured the country speaking on radioshows and other venues on how indigenous philosophy can provide windows into a more integral approach regarding human relationships with the natural environment. He is interested in further investigating the relationships between tones and human neurophysiology and continuing the bridging between ancient traditions to modern day application. On his spare time you will find him writing poetry or playing music late into the night.